1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and especially to an audio jack connector having a reliable grounding device.
2. Description of Related Art
Audio connectors are usually used in computer or other electronic equipment for transferring audio signals. An audio connector may include an audio plug and an audio jack.
A conventional audio jack is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,267. The audio jack has a housing 1 including an embedded groove 13 positioned at the bottom near the front surface, and a retaining groove 16 formed at the bottom of the housing 1. The audio jack further comprises a grounding piece 10 for abating the interfering effect of noise from outside and a L-shaped grounding terminal 15 for inner grounding. One end of the ground piece 10 is bent as an L-shaped insert end 11 for being inserted into an embedded groove 13 of the dielectric housing 1 for preventing the grounding piece 10 from sliding. The main body of the grounding piece and the inserting end 10 are formed as a tilted hook. The main body includes a frame-type grounding portion 12 which extends about the periphery of a round cylinder 14 formed on the front surface of the housing 1.
A further grounding terminal 15 is installed. The grounding terminal comprises a transverse portion and a longitudinal portion. The transverse portion is engaged to the retaining groove 16 of the housing 1. Meanwhile, the front end of the transverse portion extends toward the front surface so as to connect to the grounding piece 10. The longitudinal portion is insert into through hole formed on a PCB connecting the grounding piece 10 to the grounding circuit on the PCB so as to suppress noise form outside.
In this grounding structure, the inner grounding and the exterior grounding are jointed together, which can get better grounding effect. However, it also brings some problems. Firstly, the grounding piece 10 cannot be securely fixed on the housing and requires a space between the panel of electronic device and the audio jack housing to receive it. Further, the connection between the grounding piece and the grounding terminal is not reliable especially when the grounding terminal fails to recover from deflection permanently after mating with an audio plug. In addition, as the grounding terminal is fixed mainly by soldering on the print circuit board, the grounding terminal will come loose after the plug is inserted in and pulled out for a lot of times.
Hence, it's desirable to invent a grounding structure that overcomes the above disadvantages.